Education

“What did you do this summer?” she asks.

I struggle to come up with a decent answer–an appropriate answer. I want to say, “Apart from trying to write a thesis blind, you mean?”

“Uh, I’ve been canning, and blogging–”

“You’ve been canning?” Her incredulosity makes me want to shrink out of the room. It sounds so frivolous, so ridiculous.

After I’ve left, my mind whirls over the dozens of things I could have said to justify my summer. I helped my brother and sister-in-law with their wedding. I drove my mom to see my grandparents. I completed two quilts, a couple of pillow shams, a dresser scarf, and over a dozen potholders. I crocheted a scarf and a half dozen dishcloths. I embroidered a set of day-of-the-week tea towels. I cleaned my house and prepared meals. I babysat and helped a friend weed. I applied for jobs and went to interviews. I read and reviewed books. I blogged. I canned. I rode bicycles with a friend. And, of course, I tried to write a thesis blind.

Even as I contemplate what I’ve done this summer, I know it would have been pointless to mention it. I think back to her raised eyebrows when I read over my lunch break. “What are you reading?–Ugh, why are you reading that?” I remember the countless questions–“How many hours are you taking?”–and the snorts when I say it’s important that I spend time with church and family. The implicit message, etched into me with every interaction?

You don’t do enough. You don’t work hard enough. The stuff you spend your time on is worthless. You are worthless.

My heart believes her message even as my head rebels.

I do work hard. I don’t waste my time on frivolous things. Relationships are important. I’m not worthless.

She is the voice I’ve heard since before I ever met her, the voice that held me in bondage for years. It labels me insufficient, unlovely, incomplete, a failure. The voice that once, inside my head, told me “You’ll never amount to anything. You have all these goals but what have you ever done?”–that voice is now an external voice, attached to a face, to a woman, my accuser. “Just give up,” it says. “You don’t have anything worthwhile to contribute. You’re a waste of time, of energy. Take the easy way out.”

I firmly tell her NO–I’m not taking the easy way out. I’m not going to quit. I’m not a failure. My ideas have merit, my work is worthwhile. I’m not going to argue with her evaluation of me–I know by now that it does no good. But I’m not going to bow to her evaluation of me either. I’m not going to bow to the accuser who says I’m still in my chains.

I’m going to take my heart–that heart that’s smarting from wounds inflicted years ago, that heart whose wounds have been reopened by her word’s claw–I’m going to take my heart to the Great Physician who bore my wounds already. He bore my insufficiency, my unloveliness, my incompleteness. The stripes on His back are my heart’s healing. He took my worthlessness, granting me worth. He bore my wrongness, giving me righteousness. He experienced my failure, and declared success.

I’m taking my heart to Jesus–for by His wounds, I am healed.

I needed to talk to my professor about some papers–but I knew I couldn’t do it while other students were in the room. So I waited patiently until the last student left.

And then came the moment I’d been afraid of.

“Rebekah, how are you?” he said in that tone that says he actually cares, that he’d be willing to hear the whole story if I wanted to share it.

Just as I suspected, my eyes filled with tears and I could only take a deep breath and shrug, silently cursing myself for letting him see my weakness.

It’s been a hard semester. Probably the hardest of my life.

I’ve worked hard to not let it show–to not let my personal life infringe on my work and school life. If that meant spending long hours at home working on something that previously took me minutes, that’s what I’d do. If it meant crying out all of my tears in the evening so none could be left for work hours, that’s what I did. If it meant avoiding people in “normal life” so that I could be “on” for the hours that I had to be teaching or in meetings, so be it.

I think I was pretty successful. If any of my classmates (except Chante, the classmate who’s also a friend) or my supervisors or my teachers noticed, they didn’t let on. Except for Dr. Newman.

Dr. Newman saw through my disguise and had compassion.

And I hate it. I hate it that he has compassion on the weakness I cannot have compassion on.

“Don’t be nice to me!” I want to shout. “Don’t allow me this weakness! I shouldn’t be weak. I can’t be weak. Despise me, hate me, be harsh with me–anything but kindness is welcome.”

I don’t want to accept my weakness–and it galls me that he accepts it when I will not.

Why is being shown compassion so painful?

At the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the week before finals is “Dead Week”–the week in which professors are not supposed to give homework or tests unless previously scheduled. Of course, this just means that the professors are careful to schedule homework and tests in advance.

My modus operadi throughout my undergraduate career was to get sick every dead week. I’m moderately (Hah!) Type A and tend to work myself rather hard over the course of the semester. By dead week, my body has had enough of the stress I’ve inflicted upon it and it simply gives in. I stay in bed for a week, wishing I were dead–and then rise again on the seventh day to take finals.

Then came grad school.

I don’t remember whether I got sick in my first few semesters of grad school. It all begins to blur in my mind. But I do know what this semester’s dead week has looked like–and I definitely had no time to get sick.

I TA for a class of 200 students–and we gave them an assignment due last Thursday. So I’ve been frantically grading all week. Then on Thursday, I administered a lab practical to my other (much smaller) class. My supervisor and I sat down right away to get the practicals graded.

I had a job interview on Tuesday (I didn’t get the job–which I’m feeling ambivalent about.) I had a bit of an emotional shock on Wednesday. I had a major physical shock on Thursday. And yesterday, I baked a cake.

Actually, it wasn’t just a cake. It was a cake plus several dozen cupcakes. My sister is throwing a bridal shower for our sister-in-law-to-be today, and she’d asked me to prepare the cake. No problem. But our family…well, we have a rather large family. And even with half of the invitees not being able to show up, we’re still expecting 35 or so at the shower. So LOTS of cake making and decoration was in order.

My sister and our good friend Mary are in town for the shower–so I spent some time with them last night.

And I woke up today with an allergy-stuffed nose, a pressure-related headache, a heaviness in my fingers and toes that indicates dehydration, and a realization that I’d made it through dead week without getting sick.

Let’s hope I can do the same for finals week.

Wei Ming was one of my student employees when I was managing at Harper Dining Services. He was there when I started and there when I left. I believe he graduated the same semester I began my internship. In general, he was a quiet but conscientious employee.

Fast forward a year. I arrived in my statistics lab to discover that the TA was none other than my old employee Wei Ming. I wondered if it might be odd–being under a student I was once over. But my fears were unfounded. Wei Ming has turned out to be a knowledgeable and articulate teacher.

Our professor was gone today and will be gone on Monday, so Wei Ming is teaching the class. He confessed in lab on Wednesday that he was not looking forward to teaching. My thoughts on hearing that were somewhat different–and rightly so. Under today’s reluctant instructor, I understood the subject material better than I have in weeks.